Remembering Sri Lanka's Black July

Moments over 30 years

Moments over 30 years

My task of creating the infographic began with identifying an underlying theme to base the design on. Combining the sequence of events here with the experience of our current political discourse, there is an alarming precedent building of the possibility that “history might repeat itself”. The conclusion is highly premature, and uncertain given the variables and political depth of the matter, but it is not without reason. So I decided to use this as the thematic premise to build the infographic on.

Armed with the theme, the next step was to devise the best way to visually communicate the message which inspired me to use the Ouroboros. The figure, whose origins are first credited to Egypt around 1600BC, depicts a serpent in a circle with its tail in its mouth. With its literal translation in Greek as “tail devourer”, the Ouroboros symbolizes the cyclic nature of things. In this case, the purpose was to visually connect the audience with the chronological series of events back to the very event that preceded the cycle coinciding with the anecdotal interpretation that “history may repeat itself” if we so let it.

Furthermore, the font used in the infographic is a purposeful play into the visual theme as well. Unlike the Ouroboros, the font Helvetica is not value loaded with historical significance and symbolism. Instead, i chose the font helvetica in my design as it is considered typographic taboo in most graphic design circles- just as the ’83 riots are in our society. Helvetica was also redesigned and re-released in 1983 as Helvetica Neue, which to put into context is something our constitution and our political conversation could benefit from.